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The Werke is more or less a family business, run by granduncle Wilhelm Finkelberg with a firm grip. The Finkelbergs think and act as somewhat eccentric aristocrats or an industrialist family like the far more famous Rotschilds; they see the Werke as their world, and completely refuse to yield to the outside world. The Werke has survived several wars, bombings, communist agitation, the split from the Technocracy, the European Common Market and schisms in the family. It appears almost indestructible, like a good piece of German steel. But the price has also been high.
Behind the gates lies a straight road up to the family mansion, surrounded by a double row of elms fighting against pollution - amazingly the trees still struggle on without giving up despite Dutch elm disease and smog. The mansion at first appear to be a boxlike building, but with closer inspection it turns out to have numerous additions and wings stretching back into the area. These additions are in a variety of styles, from neo-classicism to brick buildings indistinguishable from the surrounding factories. In fact, just as the Werke are unmappable (although cousin Sigismund is working on the definitive map and organisation chart) the mansion is a confusing mass of connected buildings and labyrinthine hallways. The interior is still furnished with a mixture of 19th century styles, ranging from elegant to the industrial. The dining room, where the family sometimes congregates is a huge ballroom with a single long table under the brilliant crystal chandeliers (each member has his or her place along the table). The main study, where Thomas pores over some old book, is a sombre place dominated by dark bookshelves and busts of Goethe, Schiller and mixed German philosophers (including Bismarck, the great idol of granduncle Wilhelm). Some galleries end in doors leading straight onto the factory floor. Only parts of the buildings are electrified, the rest are lit by gas or etherite phlogistone lamps.
To the left of the mansion lies the chapel, a small building in flaking marble. It was originally built by Heinrich Finkelberg Sr., one of the more eccentric family members, in 1860. It is an adequate, if somewhat dilapidated, holy place that is practically never used by the headstrong and scientific family members. Just outside lies the family crypt, where all dead Finkelbergs lie; at funerals or other ceremonies granduncle Wilhelm usually leads the ceremony after the last priest quit some decades ago.
To the right of the mansion, hidden by some hedges forming a (failed) attempt to grow a maze lies the small village of Speyburg. The village was simply included when the Finkelberg Werke bought the land, and now lies completely inside the area. All inhabitants work for the family or in the various factories and has done so for generations.
The Werke themselves stretch back as far as one can see through the mists and coal smoke: brick buildings darkened by soot, connected with railroad tracks and concrete walkways, chimneys pouring out black smoke, warehouses and workshops. The farther into the Werke one moves, the stranger the buildings become. Many are ruined or in various states of repair since the allied bombings in the first and second world wars. The family strip-mine has hollowed out the ground beneath many of the factories so that they are perilously held up by iron supports; at least one building has been destroyed in a landslide. There is a huge locomotive shed containing obsolete steam engines quietly rusting away (bought by the Werke when they were decommissioned by the German railways; they are mainly used for spare parts), and the silent remains of the chemical plants used to extract substitute oil from shale during the war. There doesn't seem to be any end of the Werke, just more and more industries, mostly abandoned. The railroad tracks are used to export the produced goods through the secondary gates around the Werke, although several of them do not lead to any known destination.
After dealing with his deranged brother Heinrich, granduncle Wilhelm began to become the family head instead of his brother Frederick, who more and more spent his time developing new and bizarre steel manufacturing processes. Granduncle Wilhelm eventually replaced the ageing Frederick (who died of a stroke in 1872) and began to concentrate on heavy machinery, like steam engines and turbines instead of steel (which the Technocracy was far superior in producing). The remaining steel production is directed towards more or less unusual alloys and applications, like monocrystaline turbine blades or vanadium steel for machining tools. The French-German war gave the Werke a chance to demonstrate their new know-how, and granduncle Wilhelm received several medals for his industrial work.
The First World War was a boon for the Werke, despite its ending. While the pre-war period had been a golden era for the family, granduncle Wilhelm had become worried that the Technocracy was turning away from them. But the war led to a tremendous expansion of Iteration X and German war industry, and the Werke expanded with it. They produced cannons, substitute oil and engines, and gained access to several extra nodes the Technocracy gave to them. There was some damage from allied bombings from zeppelins, but it was minor compared to the growth of the Werke.
Quite naturally there was no love lost between the Finkelbergs and the French etherites, who both blamed each other for having contributed to making the war inhumane and unfair. The general disappointment with how the Technocracy had run the war and the evolution of science led to the defection of the etherites, but granduncle Wilhelm didn't participate in the infamous 1917 symposium. He explained his position officially in a letter to the Berlin chantry as
"The Finkelberg Werke has never taken orders from anybody; neither the technocracy, neither the etheric scientists - and we will never do that. We follow our own path, guided by the principles of Dynamic Science and German Industry."
The French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923 brought the conflict into the open. The Finkelbergs saw the French troops and technomancers as hopeless incompetents, as evidenced by the frequent breakdowns and problems that appeared during their reign (they of course blamed German sabotage). As a delegation of French etherites led by Dr. Maurice Philippe de Vitry (one of the leaders of the etherite defection and one of the old enemies of the Finkelbergs on the Paradigma editorial board) approached and suggested that the Finkelbergs help them doing sabotages against the Technocracy in the region with the cover of the widespread trouble, the Finkelbergs flatly refused and threatened to reveal their plot to the Technocracy.
During the chaotic twenties and thirties the Werke prospered, and it is clear that the renaissance of the German etherites was closely linked with the Werke. Many of the most powerful and influential etherites, including the legendary Dr. Nachtstahl and professor Raeder visited the Werke and used its workshops and skilled engineers to build their famous (or, in the case of Nachtstahl, infamous) machines. The engineering school started by Wilfred at the Werke became one of the major centres for applied etheric science. At the same time the Werke enjoyed great trust from the Technocracy (as Oscar Krupp, chief controller of Ruhr put it: "The Finkelbergs are like a compass, always pointing towards Ruhr and what is good for it"). Granduncle Wilhelm was planning for the final victory of German industry as the second world war started.
Things went completely wrong, and the Werke was severely hit by allied bombings (which granduncle Wilhelm still claim were directed by his old adversary Dr. de Vitry from France). But the hardest blow was the deaths of Wolfgang, the only son of granduncle Wilhelm, and his wife Victoria. Victoria was killed in one of the allied bombings of the Werke, while Wolfgang who had enrolled in the German army and had risen to the rank of major was killed during the last desperate defence at Rhen in 1945, shortly before Ruhr was surrounded and forced to capitulate. The death of his family devastated Wilhelm, who was unable to resist as the hated Dr. de Vitry appeared in Ruhr with the allied occupation. For a while it looked like the end of the Werke, as the allied discussed to completely wipe out the German war industry. Wilfred, who had complex and not entirely clean ties to the nazis suggested that the family should flee with him, but they refused and Wilfred vanished. Erich, the son of Wolfgang, heavily critiqued granduncle Wilhelm for both his nationalism and current inactivity, and eventually moved to the United States with his family and other German Sons of Ether.
Yet again the Technocracy saved the Werke, albeit not directly. As the New World Order set up the Cold War, they gave the Syndicate and Iteration X free reign in Germany to rebuild it. The Werke gradually recovered as granduncle Wilhelm recovered from his grief, and began to realise that German industry would yet rise again. Although it was clear that the Finkelberg Werke would never regain their former glory, they were restored and resumed production. Over time the wounds have healed (or as often in the Finkelberg family, been hidden and suppressed), especially since the spectacular death of Dr de Vitry in 1964. The Werke has returned to their true self, although the increasing statism of the new Ruhr district has forced them farther and farther from reality.
Surprisingly, the Werke actually manages to export products to the real world. The main export is turbine blades, turbines and turbine parts; all very specialised and quite efficient (if somewhat dated, but as granduncle Wilhelm points out, a good turbine design is ageless). Especially the turbine blades are excellent, and widely used. Another major export is paperclips and wire. Beside these main exports the Werke also produce small amounts of high-tech steel, steam engines and machines ordered by other etherites. One of the most famous products is the Hyperspeed Steam Engines used in the cloudships of Horizon.
But most of the production is not exported into the physical world. Instead trains loaded with engine parts or turbines leave the area through the other gates, that do not correspond to any railways in Ruhr. Exactly where they go is unknown, but it obviously helps the finances.
The main node is the strip-mine, where raw quintessence is harvested and used in the powerplant, fuelling the realm. It is also linked to several smaller nodes in the vicinity, including some caves in the hills around the Werke where water erosion has created small waterfalls; the Finkelbergs have placed turbines there to get Quintessence. Another important node lies in the old Krupp Werke, a conduit of Quintessence the Technocracy has all but forgotten since the pre-war days of collaboration.
The entire place is often in collective Quiet, as the smog thickens and the sound of the factories grow into a technical symphony. Some periods it is very hard to tell what is real or not, and past and present blur together; ghosts become visible and the buildings seem to be filled with inexplicable activity.
Time is a bit strange at the Werke. The time of day is carefully regulated through the clocks that exist on every wall; each hour is marked by a chorus of steam whistles and the signals at the start and end of the workday are almost deafening. But other than that, time seems to flow very loosely; some people age more than others, the seasons seem to shift depending on the general mood and it is always hard to tell what year it is. In the same way ageing seems to be optional; some people like granduncle Wilhelm and aunt Mikaela do not age perceptibly, while others grow up quickly.
It should be noted that very few family members remember who he is granduncle to, but everybody refers to him as granduncle. He was the brother of Frederick the founder (and the deranged Heinrich Sr.), and remembers all of the history of the Werke. He is the history of the Werke.
Physically, he is an old but impressive man. Almost two meters tall, with a still powerful physique. In his face an old scar from the duels of his youth is visible on his left cheek, but it has been partially obliterated by more recent scars from scalding on steam (he has scars just about everywhere from accidents and heroic rescues of victims of them). He is partially bald but retains some wild locks of white hair around the head. He dresses in an old- fashioned sharkskin suit, usually walking with an ebony stick (he has a slight limp from an accident in 1890) and an elegant monocle that often reflects light into the eyes of the person he speaks to.
Wilhelm is obsessed with the idea of steam, and is the greatest expert on the mysteries of very high pressures of his tradition. He has developed several extremely powerful steam engines, using physical properties of steel and steam nobody else has dared to explore (for good reasons; he has nearly been killed in big explosions over a dozen times). He has invented the steam cannon, which projects a beam of supersonic superheated steam with devastating effects, although after the death of Wolfgang he solemnly wowed never to build another weapon of war (but the family still retains some of the old artillery pieces used for air defence from WW I and II as a security measure). His current goal is to perfect a way to store energy in the hydrogen-oxygen plasma that develops when steam is heated to sufficiently high temperatures.
His laboratory is a large factory complex surrounding an obsolete
steelworks that rises like a black volcano at the centre of the Werke;
the factory buildings are always surrounded by smoke and steam as Wilhelm
and his workers struggle with new designs. Several of the buildings have
been ruined by explosions only to be rebuilt again, and many are
reinforced on the inside with armour.
Aunt Lieserl Finkelberg
Aunt Lieserl Finkelberg (she is the daughter of Frederick and sister of
Mikaela) is a sensitive old lady who prefers to keep to herself in her
greenhouse (built just outside the mansion, between two unused
warehouses). There she tends her exotic plants, talks to them, listens to
their ideas and jots them down in her small red notebooks. She is visibly
nervous when dealing with people, and sometimes gets hysterical
breakdowns when forced into an uncomfortable social situation. Most of
the time the only thing the family sees of her are her notebooks (which
she gets terribly upset if anybody reads) and the jars of mediocre
marmalade she leaves in the kitchen (but nobody dares to complain about
the marmalade).
Aunt Mikaela Finkelberg
Aunt Mikaela Finkelberg (the youngest daughter of Frederick) is the
opposite of granduncle Wilhelm, a reasonable old lady who is almost as
stubborn as him. She seldom concerns herself with the running of the
Werke, but she will not tolerate anybody interfering with how her family
works. She is the one who intercedes in quarrels, teaches the children
and plays match-maker. Some of the younger relatives see her as a born
meddler, but that is only half the truth; she sees the family as her
personal machine to take care of and upgrade if necessary. She has a
doctorate in applied chemistry, and often makes experiments in her
laboratory with new chemical processes for enhancing the properties of
alloys or composites. She was the mother of Eva and Wilfred in her
marriage to Erik von Rahm, and Otto and Rudolph Sr. in her marriage to Karl
Lotz (both prominent etherites at the turn of the century).
Cousin Sigismund Finkelberg
Cousin Sigismund Finkelberg is a brisk young engineer who has undertaken
the Herculean task of mapping the industries and buildings of the Werke,
to create an unified picture of what is done where and why, to make the
processes more efficient. So far he has succeeded in tracking the
building history up to the French-German war, but there are plenty of
buildings that even he admits he cannot trace. He is beginning to realise
that much of the Werke may rather be the results of collective Quiet and
belief than actual building. Still, that does not hinder his work.
Grandfather Marcus Finkelberg
Grandfather Marcus Finkelberg (the son of Frederick Finkelberg) is an old
man responsible for the making of metal wire and paperclips, one of the
main exports of the Werke. Rightfully, he should be the director of the
Werke, but granduncle Wilhelm circumvented him when Frederick became too
eccentric to lead and the timid Marcus never opposed him. Marcus does an
impeccable job, but his main interest is spiritism. He often conducts
seances with his equipment (a system of radios linked to a forest of wire
antennas hanging from the ceiling of his laboratory) to listen in to the
conversations of the dead, which he loves to relate to listeners
(including the advice from his dead wife Astrid and Frederick, who always
seems to be nagging granduncle Wilhelm about how he is running the
Werke). He is currently planning to produce ectoplasm in industrial
quantities using steam and Tass held in a strong electromagnetic field
and subjected to spiritual emanations from his antennas.
Sybil Finkelberg-Glades
Sybil Finkelberg-Glades, the mother of Thomas, is an American Daughter of
Ether who arrived at the Werke in the 60's. At first she was greeted with
a bit of suspicion, but she turned out to be a capable hydrodynamicist
and utterly obsessed with turbines, and eventually married into the
family (her husband, Hans, died in a mining accident a few years back).
She is almost never found outside her workshop, where she tests new
designs of turbine blades.
Thomas Finkelberg-Glades
Thomas Finkelberg-Glades (the son of Sybil and Hans) is a quiet young man
who prefers to study history and philosophy rather than deal with the
noisy Werke or the eccentrics of his family. He withdraws to the studies
and libraries, where he reads and works on his own unfinished (and
un-started) book about the history of the Ruhr and its links to medieval
mining. He actually gets along with strangers, as long as they are quiet
and interested in history.
Rudolph Finkelberg Jr.
Rudolph Finkelberg (the brother of Erika and Joerg, son of Marica and
Otto) is responsible for the production of turbines, which he handles
well, but his real quest in life is to develop the concept further. Alone
in the family he actually thinks electricity is more than a passing fad,
and experiments with magnetohydrodynamic turbines, generators,
electromagnetic annealing and high power electricity. His
laboratory/workshop is one of the largest in the Werke, and built
into/around the main powerplant which his sister Erika tends.
Erika Finkelberg
Erika Finkelberg is a sensible, efficient girl of 16 who runs the main
powerplant and the production of coal (she learned it from her mother,
who in turn learned it from her mother; they all regarded this as a
matriarchal task). She is usually found carrying a hardhat, directing the
foremen or poring over gauges, frantically plotting energy outputs, heat
levels and coal production to plan for the future. Unlike her big brother
Rudolph, she is an arch-conservative and often ridicules his attempts to
improve the Werke with electricity.
Cousin Joerg Finkelberg
Cousin Joerg Finkelberg is the control expert of the family. Even as a
small child he was fascinated by the regulators of steam engines, and as
he grew up he made several improvements. He went to the university in
Dortmund for a few years in the 50's, until returning even more
fascinated by the science of cybernetics. He has since then developed
ever more elaborate control systems for the regulation of everything;
energy production, water consumption, railway traffic and organisation.
He tends to prefer mechanical devices, often borrowed from the plans made
by the Unknown Man. Recently he has become more and more obsessed with
the growing disturbances in time in the Werke, and has taken upon himself
to update the clocks and perhaps build some kind of regulator for time
itself.
Wilfred Finkelberg-Glades
Wilfred Finkelberg-Glades, the grandson of Marcus and brother of Thomas
is one of the few family members who cares much for the Ascension War,
although his solution is (as expected) rather bizarre. He thinks that
the way to make technology humane is to make it widespread, accessible
and fun, so he manufactures steam-powered pencil sharpeners (looks like
an ordinary tabletop steam engine, but drives a pencil sharpener. The
removed wood and graphite are used to power it further), mechanical
executive toys, window- placed windmills and other devices somewhere
between toys and DIY industry. Some of his products actually sell well,
and he is always trying to explain his ideas to anyone who cares to
listen (he and his grandfather, both equally big talkers, often spend
hours talking at each other without listening).
Most of the workers have some kind of lung problems, and tuberculosis isn't unknown despite well-meaning attempts by the Finkelbergs to improve the environment. Strangely, many of the inhabitants of the Werke get worse if they leave them and improve as they move back.
According to one story he was a thief who stole the church-silver from the Kölner Dome and gambled it away; as a punishment God cursed him so that he would never be allowed to see the sun again until he returned the silver to the church. So to this day he hides underground, digging for silver and gathering everything of value he can find. According to another story, which is never told when a Finkelberg is present, the Tiefmann is really Wilfred Finkelberg who didn't escape to South America with the Nazis but instead hid in the deepest pits of the Werke.
The Technocracy knows about the Werke but does very little. There are several reasons for this. One reason is that destroying the Werke would probably be more work than it is worth; no doubt the Finkelbergs would resist fanatically, unleashing everything they got against an attacker - inside the Ruhr valley! And the Werke are not doing any real damage to the static paradigm, since they have become so utterly isolationist and loosely tied to the normal world. Some Iteration X materials scientists complain about their alloys and turbines, but there are also highly placed technomancers who remember the good old days when the Werke was a part of the Technocracy. They remark that the Werke never split off from the Technocracy, it was the reverse.
Most other traditions know or care very little for the Werke, despite their power. Ostensibly, all other traditions are welcome, but few stay for long. The nature oriented traditions soon get depressed by the lack of ordinary plantlife or nature in the region, the Celestial Chorus found the inhabitants to be too practical and materialistic, the Virtual Adepts laughed "steampunk" when they saw the Werke and moved on. A few hermetic mages have stayed longer, studying in the library together with Thomas, but that is all.
The death of Eric in Miami has left Carl an orphan. The PCs might encounter the serious child mage and decide to bring him to his relatives. Granduncle Wilhelm will be both delighted to meet his great-grandson and enraged in hearing about the death of his grandson. The PCs will be dragged along, whether they want it or not, as Wilhelm charges out to seek revenge. And how will the America-born Carl handle the Finkelberg Werke?
Grandfather Marcus builds his ectoplasm generator, and starts to format ectoplasm using the spiritual emanations his antenna receives. The result is a way for wraiths and other inhabitants of the Shadowlands to manifest semi-physically in the world. While Marcus is away, eagerly explaining his invention to anybody who cares to listen, beings start to escape into the Werke. What to do when there are spectres physically present? Will Heinrich Sr. try to avenge himself on granduncle Wilhelm, or just fill out the family crypt with anybody he can find? And what about the ghosts of dead machines?
The Heart of Darkness: the Werke has for a long time exported paperclips through the E gate, which nobody knows where it leads. It is a profitable activity, but each time granduncle Wilhelm sends someone to investigate, that person is never seen again - and the import becomes more profitable. What is out there? Why are the trade representatives disappearing?
There are acts of sabotage at the Werke! Someone of something is interfering with the train schedules to cause wrecks, and several high-pressure devices have exploded mysteriously. Who or what is behind it? It could be the kobolds, French etherites (granduncle Wilhelm's theory), a marauder, Russian anarchists or something completely different.
Granduncle Wilhelm is on the warpath: a technocracy plot to re-develop the Ruhr walley into a more "clean" and "eco-friendly" biotechnological direction threatens the existence of the Werke. It is time for the family and their allies to once and for all show them who is running the show! But who is strongest? Can the PCs prevent Wilhelm from walking straight into a trap, sure of his invulnerability? And what about the tradition mages who have been supporting the change?
The Unknown Man: who was he? Could he be cousin Joerg, fallen victim to a severe Time paradox? Or does the Quiet at the Werke sometimes become so strong that new family members appear?
Der Tiefmann: who is he? He could be a Nosferatu vampire hiding in the Werke; maybe the stories are right and he is Wilfred. What would the family do if they found out that one of them was a vampire stalking the dark buildings?
That does not mean the factories and machines are nice and friendly, quite the opposite. Most of the Werke belong to another era of industry, an era where worker safety and protecting the environment were unknown. More than one family member has been killed in accidents, and the air is often hard to breathe. Still, the Werke, the workers and the Finkelbergs cannot survive without each other, they form a perfect industrial symbiosis.
Just as all living things can heal, so does the Werke heal all devastation to themselves. And all living beings have their primal urges, in this case the urge to produce, to develop, to serve. This reflects in the Finkelbergs, who despite their frailties and quirks are idealists who sincerely believe in making the world better, even if their perspective of the world mainly consists of the Werke, Ruhr and Germany.
Up to the NPC PageAnders Sandberg / nv91-asa@nada.kth.se